you would have lost me (principal engineer) with those questions.
Discussion has gone off the rails here. Maybe I didn't make it clear - the puzzles were during casual conversation at lunch. Rebutting something I didn't say, is not fair.
As with most things, it depends a lot on the history you have with those people and the psychological safety you feel, so it depends? Definitely not with someone I just met and is interviewing me for a job.
And FWIW I also don't interview anywhere there are questions like this.
Didn't you have anything more interesting/relevant to talk about?
That is not what's happening when you're interviewing me for a job position. You're not my peer. We're not having fun. There's a non-subtle implication that my ability to answer the riddle will impact whether or not I get the job. I would be very annoyed if someone asked a puzzle like this too. It's not a novel puzzle. It's mostly a gotcha where intuition meets math. I could blurt out the answer. But I would instead feel it more important to slowly reason out the answer and appear to discover it on the fly. Which is pretty bullshit. And I would think you're not very smart for thinking this is worth anyone's time.
If I didn't know the puzzle and I failed to get the job I would be mad and it would stick out as something that penalized me unfairly.
And as an interviewer, I've never been asked to report on lunch chats.
> You're not my peer. We're not having fun.
Actually, most interviewers are your peers, and they typically know that you're under interview stress and are trying to help. If you can't take a break and de-stress during lunch, you're just hurting yourself.
Conversely, the couple times I had those "casual" lunches as a candidate, "I'm jetlagged" was a graceful way to lie out of the question why I wasn't eating much.
Every time I interviewed someone, I ALWAYS asked myself if I would want to work with this person.
Not just, can they do the job? Not just, are they technically competent? But, is this someone I would be comfortable going to, asking for help? Are they someone I can build rapport with, brainstorm new approaches and products with? Do they pass the "have a beer together" test?
Someone who explicitly has an attitude of, "You're not my peer, we're not having fun" doesn't sound like a good collaborator. Doesn't sound like someone who can be an approachable. Doesn't seem like a good mentor to newer members of the team.
Interviewing is a high stress situation where the person performing the interview ultimately has power. What you're discussing here is how well I can socially fit in - regardless of pressures/stress on my side of the table etc.
It's 100% performative - if I am an interviewee I'm showing you the professional version of myself which is positive attitude and politeness. I'm upholding a social contract.
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> Do they pass the "have a beer together" test?
I'm not here to have beers with you - I'm here to work. And, I think this is pervasive in regards to hiring. This can be incredibly discriminatory and I would appreciate you interview me on the value I can add with my labor vs. "can I have a beer with this guy?" That's weird to me, and as someone who interviews I work hard to not think this way... "Who I like" isn't necessarily who is going to perform in the role - I have to keep my personal preferences out of my professional decisions in my world... and I think that's fair.
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Idk - interviewing is not fun for most people. I defend op's "we're not peers, we're not having fun" perspective both as an interviewer, and interviewee. I think it's a reasonable stance to take as long as they're outwardly presenting as professional and polite as that's what actually matters... not "beers"
Sexual innuendos from peers at the bar are one thing, sexual innuendos from interviewer are another
TBH I'd just have found it contrived and boring. I wouldn't be excited to have colleagues who couldn't just talk about normal stuff at lunch.
One reason for the lunch is to try and relax a bit and test “cultural fit”, which is more like a blind date between two people to see if there is any spark. Ideally it is a two way conversation, where the candidate and the interviewers get to judge each other.
There is a problem where cultural fit “tests” are heavily biased against minorities - for example most any sports discussion is dominated by your social class.
Enjoying brain teasers matches a particular type of geek, and the discussion likely veered or was encouraged in that direction by the candidate. It wasn’t Machiavellian, which perhaps you are more responsive to?
I absolutely don't like solving puzzles with other people. On the other hand, I do enjoy writing code on my own, solving problems (not puzzles) and then sharing the results in a readable way with others.
I do like to socialize with peers, but never playing games (I prefer to play games on the computer against NPCs).
THe reason I don't like this is there are people who've asked me ludicrous puzzle questions before and they are proxies for 'people I wouldn't want to work with'.
At least normally when someone takes you out to the XYZ company “not part of the interview” lunch halfway through your eight hour interview loop and you chat small talk and background, there aren’t actual interview questions being thrown your way.
Imagine going to lunch and the interviewer striking up a conversation with “how many manholes do you suspect there are in New York.”
No, we like to talk about normal stuff.
I have seen people with similar insensitivity fail to understand why people in their teams dont like them: "but I treat them as if we are peers!! I like playing on the 'you are doing it wrong'games"!!
You have to remember that, after about 2010, the software industry is mostly comprised of people who are after a paycheck and their actual interest in computers, STEM, and other nerd activates is kind of minimal. It came as a shock to me too when I realized that the old shibboleths of being a hacker had become largely absent in the software industry.
No, I said what I said because it's hard enough to be "on" during the coding interviews and also "on" during the culture tests, to also be "interested" in your puzzle. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong signal to send. Lunch interview (and the transport to it) is about learning about other people in a fairly non-competitive way.
An interviewer is most certainly not a peer.
> with puzzles or tricky problems
Seeing a a middle school question as "tricky" it's a bit worrying.
No, I go to work for an employer and work with my peers. My peers are not my friends in most situations. Maybe for you that is the extent of your social life so you think peers have to be friends, but you mixing the two together is your work/life balance limitation being applied to those you want to hire.